Draft dodgers

Football writer with The Age

Bright future: Troy Menzel dominates when he plays and now just needs to find success in the draft. Photo: Penny Stephens

MOST years, there is one of them. This year there are two - Troy Menzel and Jake Stringer, talented teenage footballers who would be certain top-10 draft picks if not for significant injuries that have left recruiters wondering if their bodies will let them do what they want to do at the next level up.

Menzel was 16 when he had LARS surgery on his right knee, more than two years ago. This year, between managing a groin injury and damaging the posterior cruciate ligament in his opposite knee, he kicked 15 goals in two games for South Australia's under-18 team and played his first senior games for Central District. Wherever he plays, he needs only a few minutes to make the other side feel nervous.

Stringer was 16 when he was injured, too. Playing for the Bendigo Pioneers at the start of last season, he had a compound fracture of his leg, breaking both the tibia and fibia. He was back by the start of this year but his season was a bumpy one: he's kicked plenty of goals and proved he can play as a marking forward, but has been sore at times, limped around and had to answer a 1001 questions about his awkward running gait.

There will come a point, early enough in the draft, when both Menzel and Stringer become irresistible. They are too talented to leave sitting on the board for too long. Their injuries are unique to them, as is their attitude in overcoming them, or in dealing with any future mishaps.

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How long will it take Stringer to run like he used to? Will he ever? Can he become the midfielder he wants to be? Could his improvement in fact be rapid, working with physios every day?

Then there is Menzel. When will his LARS ligament give in on him? How many other AFL players have come back well from two knee reconstructions? Would it be enough to get eight years from his enormous talent, as opposed to 10, 11 or more? He could be the best player in the draft.

Time will tell, but both boys should also feel encouraged: as recent history shows, pre-draft injuries don't always stick around, or come back time and again.

CHRIS JUDD(Pick 3, West Coast, 2001) The Carlton captain popped a shoulder for the first time when he was nine and by the time he was considered one of 2001's star draftees he had had reconstructive surgery on both sides. His last two junior seasons were often interrupted - until he had the operations - and his durability was of concern to some clubs, albeit in a minor way given he was still considered a clear top-three pick and some people's No.?1. As West Coast coach John Worsfold put it after the draft, Judd's shoulders didn't worry him at all, because they had already been fixed. It's hard to recognise Judd, who turns 30 next year, without tape wrapped around both shoulders, but aside from surgery last February to repair an impingement, he hasn't seemed to have any issues with them.

JOEL SELWOOD(Pick 7, Geelong, 2006) Adam and Troy's tough younger brother was ready to be drafted at the end of 2005, but was just a little too young. Selwood missed much of the next season after knee surgery and, while most people had no doubt he would come back and play, there were fears about what the damaged, then removed cartilage would mean for the teenager's longevity and how badly it would affect his pace. Selwood didn't have to wait too long on draft day, snapped up by the Cats after Bryce Gibbs, Scott Gumbleton, Lachie Hansen, Matthew Leuenberger and Travis Boak were chosen. Since? Well, he's not fast. But he's played in three premierships, become Geelong's captain and played 135 games in six years, missing only a handful of games. Any club would have him.

JACK DARLING(Pick 26, West Coast, 2010) Darling would have been one of the first few players picked in the 2009 draft, had he been eligible. Finished at school, he trod water for much of the next year, didn't grow, didn't dominate games like he had and was involved in some off-field scuffles that made recruiters nervous. There was more to it than that, though: Darling spent several days in hospital after he was hit from behind outside a hotel in Subiaco early one Sunday morning about two months before the draft. He had bleeding on the brain, bruising at the front of his head and a fracture at the back of his skull. Clubs were divided on whether it would be an ongoing issue for him, some sure it wouldn't be and others warned off picking him by their medical staff. Darling missed just two games in his debut season last year, and none this year, kicking 53 goals to more than double his first-year tally. So far, so good.

TRAVIS VARCOE(Pick 15, Geelong, 2005) The brilliant, blistering Varcoe was considered a potential top-five pick when The Sunday Age surveyed recruiters early in 2005. Then he broke his left foot playing his second senior game for Central Districts and didn't reappear for the year. It was a terrible injury, involving separated bones and damaged ligaments and it took Varcoe most of the year to get answers on what exactly he had done and how he could get back. He still had his foot in a moon boot at the draft camp in October, there was serious concern he might never play again, and some clubs went completely cold. Varcoe was ultimately drafted to a club - Geelong - that could afford to give him some time but that also made a brave, bold call. It took him time to get his foot right, but after making his debut in early 2007, he slowly started to turn himself into the line-breaking player he had promised to be. The foot hasn't caused Varcoe any problems since but his other one has: the 24-year-old broke down with a stress fracture last January, had three operations on it this year, and his one senior game late in the year was cut short.

BEAU MUSTON(Pick 22, Hawthorn, 2005) Muston was an interesting case and different to the likes of Judd and Selwood who had form on the board. He didn't play any TAC Cup football as a 17-year-old and the 2005 season was just six weeks old when, after playing some fast, explosive football through the Murray Bushrangers' midfield, he had his knee reconstruction. Clubs knew before the draft that Muston's graft hadn't taken properly and that he'd need a second reconstruction before he could even get started. Unfortunately, his troubles didn't end there: Muston had a third reconstruction early in 2008 and, while he eventually got to the start line grabbing 31 possessions in his first game midway through 2009, his explosiveness wasn't there any more, hindering his hopes of making it as a midfielder. He was delisted at the end of 2010.

DYSON HEPPELL(Pick 8, Essendon, 2010) Word of Heppell's supposed groin problem surfaced only just before the draft. It wasn't exactly considered an injury: Heppell had reported no real symptoms of osteitis pubis and had just won the Morrish Medal at the end of an excellent season for the Gippsland Power. The thing that concerned some clubs, after he had the usual array of draft camp scans, was whether his body would be able to handle an AFL workload and even get through a pre-season without breaking down. In his two years at Essendon, he's been fine: Heppell played every game in his debut season, winning the Rising Star award and missed only two this year as he started to spend more time in the midfield.

AYCE CORDY(Pick 14, Western Bulldogs, 2008) Cordy's draft year ended very early, when he had a shoulder reconstructed. The injury didn't generate huge debate among clubs at the time, given the ruckman was tied to the Western Bulldogs as a father-son pick, although it didn't deter St Kilda from nominating its first-round pick for him. It took Cordy a long time to trust his body, to build some size and to start doing the things that had come naturally to him as a nimble, agile kid: understandable, given his shoulders used to pop out while he was doing chin-ups and that he used to dread competitive training drills, because he knew he would get hurt. During his second season, Cordy had surgery in which pieces of his collarbone were placed in both shoulders, limiting their range of movement but making it impossible for them to be broken or pushed out of place. After a two-game start in 2011 he played another dozen this year and started to show what his 202 centimetres might be capable of.

ROBBIE TARRANT(Pick 15, North Melbourne, 2007) Like Cordy, Tarrant had shoulder problems before he was drafted in the first round. Opinions were a little more divided on where he would slot into the draft order, but the Roos saw him as a clear first-round pick, given tall, marking forwards are not easy to find. Tarrant snuck in two games in 2010, his third year at the club, and upped that to seven the following season after overcoming more injuries: all up he's had four shoulder reconstructions, three on his left side and one on his right. This year he played 16 games, kicking 23 goals and looked like a more confident player, one who was starting to work out how he could have an impact on games and show his teammates what he could do.

CALLUM BARTLETT(Pick 27, Brisbane Lions, 2009) Bartlett ruptured his left knee in the last half-hour of training before the Geelong Falcons' first-round game of 2009. The year before, he had made an impression as a bold, fast, catch-me-if-you-can onballer, qualities that set him apart from many of the other midfield prospects around him. He was seen - provided he cleaned up his kicking and worked on a few other things - as a potential top-10 pick when he was injured. Chosen, ultimately, at the end of the second round, Bartlett had only just come back through the Lions' reserves side in 2010 when his opposite knee collapsed, ending another season. He has spent the past two seasons back in the the reserves side: if he makes it at AFL level the club suspects it will be as a bullocking small forward, rather than the explosive onballer he had hoped to become.

JACK GRIMES(Pick 14, Melbourne, 2007) Grimes' draft year ended a little early when he was diagnosed with stress fractures in his back. By then, the super-steady onballer and leader-in-the-making had proven himself as a first-round talent. That's where he was picked and, ever since, Grimes has adapted to life on the half-back line with ease and been appointed the Demons' co-captain. Remarkable, really, given he has missed enormous amounts of football since arriving at Melbourne with hip, back, groin and hamstring problems, as a well as a navicular stress fracture that cut his 2011 season well short.

BEAU DOWLER(Pick 6, Hawthorn, 2005) Dowler is another different case: the floating forward didn't have any football-related injuries, but arrived at the draft in a wheelchair after receiving three pelvic fractures in a car accident and spending five days in hospital less than one month out. Hawthorn (which also chose Xavier Ellis, Grant Birchall, Max Bailey, Muston and father-son Travis Tuck that day) stuck with its plan to draft him and Dowler recovered in time to play two late-season games in 2006, one more in 2007 and 13 in 2009, including a run of six early in the year. He wasn't held back by his pre-draft problems, but couldn't find a way to impose himself at AFL level and was delisted at the end of 2010.

ELLIOTT KAVANAGH(Pick 19, Essendon, 2011) Kavanagh's form at the 2010 under-16 championships meant he was seen as a possible top-five pick heading into his draft season last year. But two bad hamstring tears meant he missed the AIS-AFL Academy's games in Europe at Easter, then Vic Metro's matches in the mid-year under-18 championships. Kavanagh played nine games in the second half of the year but by then other players had pushed past him and clubs were wondering if he would be durable enough to cope at the next level. He's still a work in progress, but played a full season this year, had no hamstring problems, got a one-game taste of senior football and is a player the Bombers need to start pushing up next year.